Author(s):
Pedro Macizo
Cyma Van Petten
Type:
Peer-reviewed Article
Research Area:
Cognitive Neuroscience
Many multisyllabic words contain shorter words that are not semantic units, like the CAP in HANDICAP and the DURA (hard) in VERDURA (vegetable). The spaces between printed words identify word boundaries, but spurious identification of these embedded words is a potentially greater challenge for spoken language comprehension, a challenge that is handled by different mechanisms in different models of auditory word recognition. Subphonemic acoustic differences - subtle differences in pronunciation - often differentiate embedded words from genuine words.
Publication:
Brain & Language
